


under pressure

by Spokane



Category: Watchmen (2009), Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Infidelity, Post-Canon, Unsafe Sex, Woman on Top, a lot of Laurie’s feelings, hate-ish sex, she likes to repress emotions, then not, until they explode in big messy pieces
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:13:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22704508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spokane/pseuds/Spokane
Summary: Her mother once told her,things change.Laurie didn't know what to think of it then, but now- she thinks maybe she gets it now.Post-karnak, Laurie is having a little trouble adjusting to a blindingly hopeful future.
Relationships: Dan Dreiberg/Laurie Juspeczyk (background), Laurie Juspeczyk/Adrian Veidt
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	under pressure

**Author's Note:**

> [I’m about 10 years too late for this fandom, but this is what I would’ve written in high school had I the wherewithal to do so. Here’s to Laurie getting some development, and all the bumps along the way.]

> _"Insanity laughs under pressure we're breaking."_
> 
> _\- Queen and David Bowie. "Under Pressure"._

The first person Laurie tells is her mother.

It’s a muggy afternoon, her sweat soaked sleeves clinging to her as she reaches to pick up the receiver and her mother answers, she always does. They make the usual pleasantries, but it isn’t until Sally asks her about Dan that Laurie breaks, almost without meaning to. Her mother is the only one who could ever really understand, but even Sally couldn’t ever really know the context surrounding what Laurie had done and just how much she was truly her mother’s daughter.

“Mom, I fucked up.”

“Oh Laurie _sweetheart,_ ” Her mother croons, velvety and sweet like the cocktail she hears Sally set down over the line. “I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

“No Mom, I _really_ fucked up.” Laurie gravely repeats as she makes to sit down in the lounger.

“Well, what’d you do?” Her mother’s tone is still light, and Laurie can hear the incredulous smile in it. Sally clearly can’t imagine her daughter doing anything serious enough to warrant such concern, Laurie has had her shit together for _so_ long. What she’s done defies imagination.

Nonetheless, Laurie tells her.

She tells her about how the last time she went to LA to visit for a week, it was in a period of transition for her and Dan. He’d proposed a few months earlier and it was a modest but nice ring. Naturally, she’d said yes. But of course she had, Dan was fundamentally _good_ \- good for her, good to her, they were good together. There was even discussion of children in the near future, but they’d decided to wait until Dan got more settled with work- he’d have to spend a 2 months in Tokyo on a project.

But Laurie could catch glimpses, the moments between moments where Dan still itched for the old life, but the last thing the world needed right now was another costumed hero trying to save it. She felt much the same, her mind was often unquiet as she stared off into the night sky through the bedroom window, Dan’s soft snores a chorus around her. Dan left for Tokyo, promising to call every night, and Laurie left for LA on her vacation time, unable to stand the quiet of an empty house.

Her mother’s house was comfortable, they spent time together catching up on what felt like a mislaid childhood. Maybe it was because they talked more now as had they rarely talked then. But one night Sally had a date with friends, leaving Laurie alone in the house and feeling slightly pathetic in her solitude.

Even after getting off the phone with Dan, after a brief and slightly distant conversation, she couldn’t help but wonder why she didn’t have any friends back in New York, why everything suddenly felt so stagnant and why she felt hollow and empty. She continued to muse while opening a bottle of her mother’s best pinot noir.

It was only on her second glass did Laurie deign to dignify the feelings emptiness with a label- she missed Jon. But fuck, she _missed_ Jon. She knew she shouldn’t miss him, she knew it was wrong and that was what destroyed her most. She had a fiancée, a career, a mortgage and eventually she’d have a goddamn baby if Dan had his way when he got back. Jon couldn’t really give her any of that. But the ache of desperate loneliness welled up inside her nonetheless. She was still in love with him, or at least parts of her were. And she was finally, she supposed, tipsy enough to admit it now.

A few glasses later she decides she’s done wallowing and turns on the TV. However, the first thing she sees is Adrian _fucking_ Veidt and his perfect newscaster accent masking his real one, and his welcoming smile masking everything else she knew about him.

“-and in the wake of this tragedy, I thought there was no better time to unveil the new housing developments, with the energy breakthrough we’ve made. We were able to harness what Manhattan had done, but use it towards the renewable source of clean energy that the new eco-friendly prototype is equipped with. With many more accessible complexes in development.”

“My sources tell me you’ve scoped even out a unit for yourself in the New-Topia building, Mr. Veidt.”

“Aaha, that’s correct Mike, I have indeed. Call it a summer home, if you will. There is so much infrastructure building in Los Angeles now, I’ve considered making the move permanent.”

“Oh? New York will be very disappointed to lose you.”

“Not to worry! New York will probably always be my home, the city is very dear to me. Call me a traditionalist but-”

The screen goes dark, Laurie can’t listen to any more.

She’s so angry to can almost hear her pulse in her ears. Jon once told her that her mind went to dark places, and now is no exception. She lets her mind to take a slide towards her mother’s darkest story; the one she’d only admitted to Laurie once, and never mentioned it again. The night Silk Spectre had murdered the Liquidator and disposed of his body singlehandedly in a bathtub, after she was riddled by feelings of guilt and shame over Silhouette’s murder. Laurie had never understood why Sally had done it then, but now- now things were different.

Laurie felt that white-hot restless rage and excruciating compulsion for revenge swirl inside her, perhaps for the first time in her life. The souls of fifteen million people cried out to her, ripping open the void left in Jon’s absence- all orchestrated by Veidt. To that end, Laurie comes up with a shockingly simple plan.

Tonight she was going to kill Adrian Veidt.

And he’d never see it coming, not this time. She was Silk Spectre and she was lethal, not to mention royally pissed off and riding a high of liquid courage. Before leaving she slips the ring from her finger, placing it neatly on the end table by the door. The woman that Dan was marrying didn’t have this darkness inside her, simmering just beneath the tough persona of a modern woman of the times. No, this was someone else entirely, this was perhaps the first time she felt the true zeitgeist of the Silk Spectre flood her senses as an anonymous enactor of justice. Rorschach would be so proud.

Was it one of Laurie’s better thought out plans? Probably not, but if she knew anything intimately well it was how to soar into the night and do something stupid.

Arriving at the New-Topia high-rise ( _god_ , even the name made her grind her teeth) and sneaking her way up fire escape stairwell was surprisingly easy. As was knowing Adrian’s predilection with ambition wouldn’t allow him to reside on any floor that wasn’t the top. The place wasn’t nearly as obsequious as his penthouse. Sure, it looked insufferably upscale but not impossibly so, which was very unlike Veidt.

There was a single, grandish looking door in front of her- which Laurie can only assume is the front door. Though she had no idea what awaited her on the other side of it, she’d had just enough wine to feel sufficiently emboldened to pound on it forcefully, purposefully neglecting the doorbell. She felt prepared to take on an entire entourage if need be. Let him unleash his security teams on her- let them give it their best shot. She’d take them all down easily.

Adrian’s thin perfect face turning to surprise and anguish when she aims and takes her shot is looking more and more promising by the second as Laurie continues to pound her fists against the polished wood.

To her absolute shock, it is the man himself who finally answers at length. Adrian stands before her, wearing the finest lavender loungewear and a habitually indecipherable expression betraying neither surprise nor annoyance.

“Laurel.” Adrian’s nigh imperceptible accent curls around the last L and she feels suddenly very sober.

She’s going to kill Adrian Veidt, right here, right now. He is going to die in his robe and slippers and tomorrow the headlines will read “beloved billionaire and philanthropist found slain, details to follow.”

Laurie lifts the gun, and it is then that her addled brain serves to remind her that this is all so very familiar. In a blur of fine silk, she barely has time to register pain as her wrist is twisted in an unnatural position and the gun dislodged from her grasp. As it clatters against the floor she remembers, _but of course- shooting Adrian hadn’t worked before, had it?_ And she’d been completely sober last time, to boot.

“No!” She screeches in frustration, only realizing now that this plan was never going to work, and only served as an unintentional suicide mission. That she is now effectively disarmed and standing in Veidt’s foyer with no backup plan against a man who could literally kill her without breaking a sweat.

_God this was so fucking stupid._

There was no way he was going to let her go after this, and Dan might be a long time finding out what happened to her. At the very least she could maybe rub that smugly contemplative expression off his face before she goes. Before he disposes of her as a “necessary evil” to tie up loose ends or whatever he told himself these days. Laurie blindly throws the first punch, and to her utter bewilderment it _lands._ She feels it make contact with his chest. So she throws another that catches Adrian square in the jaw along with a jab at his solar plexsus. But she realizes her victory is utterly hollow. The only reason she’s hitting him at all isn’t anything to do with her prowess, but the fact that Adrian is letting her- just like he let Dan at Karnak. 

“C’mon you son of a bitch! Fight me!”

She doesn’t give him time to answer before she tackles him and Adrian lets himself fall to the floor like an intricate petal against a bitter wind. Laurie ends up straddling him with her hips across his stomach and her fists curled into the front of his robe.

“You better stop with this pacifist shit, Adrian. I know what kind of monster you really are.” Laurie seethes, pulling at the lavish fabric of his robe.

“Laurie, I understand that you are upset with me, that you have deemed my actions beyond your capacity forgiveness and deserving of death.” He tries, his voice never raising above its usual calm cadence.

“Damn straight, you ruined my fucking life-”

“Interesting.” Underneath her, Adrian tilts his head. “The indent of that engagement ring might ought to say differently. Unless you’re having second thoughts, which I’m fairly certain I cannot claim responsibility for but rest assured, they’re pretty common for the first few months.”

She realizes that the glove on her left hand must’ve come dislodged in the tussle, exposing a minute indentation the ring left on her finger that Adrian was probably the only man in the world to have noticed. _God_ it was disturbing when he did that, going in straight for the kill with his intellect.

“Shut the _fuck_ up. You have no fucking right-” Laurie isn’t sure what pisses her off most, the fact that he might be right or that he doesn’t deem her a serious enough threat to warrant any fear or emotional response. Furious, she wraps her hands around his thin neck and slams him back into fine marble flooring.

She’s so angry, she can barely grit the words out. “You killed millions, and my fucking fa-” She catches herself in the nick of time, but really, there is no catching yourself in front of Veidt. For all she knows, he may already know her true paternity.

Further enraged by her near miss, she cuts straight to the point. “Jon is gone, and it’s your fault. You did this, you did all of this.”

Laurie finds that Adrian has nothing to say to this, like he’s just politely waiting for her little outburst to end, as if it were but an insignificant blip on his radar. She slaps him again before returning her hands to his throat, this time squeezing enough to restrict his airflow.

“You’re not stopping me- you really think I won’t kill you like this, you arrogant prick?” She gets in his face, but he gives her nothing to betray his discomfort. “So what, you think you’re a martyr now, you think I’ll be all fixed if you just let me beat it out of you? Maybe if you’d let me shoot you instead of being a fucking coward…”

She releases her grip, waiting for his response, and he doesn’t even dignify her with so much as a gasp for air.

“The burden I live with also lies within you and Dan, and for that I am truly sorry. That you must now share in the pain I live with every day.” He tells her, clinically calm and soft spoken, as if he were detached from such mundane earthly bounds like emotional reactions. Even after she’s effectively beat down his front door and tried to murder him.

That was a shared quality with Jon that she missed more than she had any right to. It should be the killing of millions that enraged and hurt her the most, that made her want to kick and punch and scream at him, to hurt him, but it _wasn’t._ It was Jon, it would always be Jon. And that’s what made shame and anger well up inside her like a geyser.

“You think you know my pain?” 

“Laurie, I _understand_ your feelings. You have every right to them.” Adrian’s self-righteous arrogance only served to incense her further.

Veidt didn’t even begin to grasp the roots of her despair. He considered her relationship with Jon so trivial that he hadn’t even considered her pain. She’d told Jon once _you know how everything in this world fits together except people_. And that was just it, Adrian didn’t understand how he’d forced Jon away from her, he never considered her emotions in driving Jon from the planet, not even for a moment. It was never so much as a factor in his extensive equation and it had no right to matter now to her as much as it did.

“No, you don’t Adrian. You don’t have a clue.” Laurie can feel the emotions spilling unbidden from her eyes, wet and hot. “You can _never_ understand it. You hear me? Never. Because you never even fucking considered it, _my_ pain, not for a single goddamn second.” She spits back, voice low and dangerous as she returns her grip on his throat.

 _Fuck_ she was crying now. The face below her grew blurry as wet angry tears sprang from her eyes. Adrian’s owlish eyes grew wide as he studied her, taking in every detail, like she was just another puzzle to be fixed.

“Tell me,” He beseeched in a hushed voice. “Tell me Laurie. What it is that I have missed in my analysis.”

She would never, _could_ never tell him everything. Everything would mean admitting that she was still in love with Jon, a fact that darkened the bright promise of Dan and the perfect life she had waiting for her in this festering utopia. Admitting that there would always be a dark pull that tugged at her, a pull to humanize the disconnected. Like a shepherd, she yearned to pull those astray back to the confines of humanity. The part of her that was hemorrhaging in Jon’s absence, that wept for his unrecoverable humanity as he vanished into an unconceivable entity galaxies away.

That part of her was cracking under the crushing pressure of human nature and maybe it was to blame for what she’d done next. Or maybe it was the wine, her accursed capacity for bad decisions tonight, her desperation, or the way blood sweetly ebbed from his nose down to his lips; red and full and perfect.

Whatever the reason, it would forever remain a mystery as to why Laurie leaned forward and kissed him.

Adrian’s lips melted beneath hers, warm and bleeding with faintest scrape of light stubble against her skin. Like all the things she’d yearned from Jon towards the end. She immediately went to deepen the kiss and he granted her access to invade his mouth with her tongue, remaining supplicant as she fed him her failings.

“Well then.” Adrian murmurs when she finally relinquishes him to gasp for air, his voice gone low and thick. Laurie carefully tracks the movements of his tongue as he licked his lips and knows he tastes the same blood she still had the tang of in her mouth. His eyes were dark as he regarded her carefully.

Stunned by what she’d done, Laurie shifts back against him and found that he was getting hard. An undeniable firmness was beginning to press against her ass. _Interesting._ She presses against him more deliberately this time, and while his face betrays no reaction, she feels him stiffen further through the thin silk material and her pants in apparent response to her stimulation.

“If I didn’t know better I’d say you liked this, you sick fuck.” She whispers to him. “Either that or I hit you so hard you forgot what I am; that a woman can hit you just as hard as a man, gun or no gun- if you piss her off enough.”

“I’m well aware of what you are, Laurie.”

“Guess all those rumors weren’t entirely true then.” She retorts with a shrug.

“I may not,” Adrian pauses, carefully thinking on his words for a moment. “ _pitch_ for the other team. But I can still bat for them.”

“That doesn’t make any fucking sense.” She shakes her head, but understands his meaning perfectly. “But whatever, get up. I’m not doing this on your floor.”

Which is how she ended up straddling him on 2000 thread count sheets, even if the exact mechanics of it were a bit fuzzy. She’d lost most of her clothes, and the bloodstained ruined remnants of his fine silk robe were also discarded somewhere on the carpeted floor. Their lips continued to glide together even as Laurie manhandled him as she saw fit. Adrian’s chest was immaculately lean, sculpted, and remarkably smooth, unlike Dan’s. He could’ve nearly passed for the statue of an ancient Greek god, but the illusion was broken by how warm his flesh felt against hers, how unforgivably human.

“You’re using me as a replacement,” He tells her, slowly dissecting her psyche. “a replacement for Jon. You feel I am responsible for driving him away, so it’s only fitting you would capitalize on our similar traits to relive your experiences with him.”

“How perceptive of you.” Laurie spits back at him in a mockery of his tone, exaggerating the accent she knew he privately wished he could permanently discard.

“I don’t mind, Laurie. Not in the least.” 

She eyes the persistent bulge rising up against the silk confines of his shorts. “I can see that.”

“Why are you even turned on by this anyways?” Laurie probes while absently rubbing herself against the hard ridge of his hip bone.

Adrian just smiled at her, like she’d asked an unbelievably stupid question. “I have an attractive, mostly naked woman stimulating herself in my lap.”

“No, I mean before.” She throws her weight forward to pin her hands into his chest, feeling how his heart beat steadily under her palms, now just a measure above calm cadence. A very human response to arousal. “ You were hard when I was beating you up- when you were letting me beat you up.”

“Ah,” Adrian’s chilly smile slides into something fonder. “ _that_.” He pauses for long enough that she’s not sure he has an answer for her and decides that she doesn’t really want one from him.

“Never mind, I don’t even wanna know.” Laurie growls as she crawls over his face. She had better plans for his mouth. There was something startlingly arousing in the way his bright eyes pierced her and the way he slowly removed her panties, elegant fingers pulling them past her waist, pausing to ask permission.

“May I?” His melodic voice didn’t waver in its softness.

Laurie doesn’t respond, merely lifting herself enough to allow him to remove them before planting her heat against his lips. Dan always went down on her like a champ, ever so eager to show her that _yeah he was with the times, women should get their shake as well_ and to gain her affections in return. But Adrian- he eats her out like he _owes_ her something. Like he owes her his perfect world by being the unwilling keeper of his terrible secret and bearing the brunt of the appalling costs this tentative peace had demanded.

Somehow they end up shifting positions so that she rests at the edge of the bed with one leg thrown over his shoulder while he kneeled on the floor, licking at her every bit like the cat who got the cream. He was unfairly skilled at this. She’d imagined what sex might be like with Ozymandias before, as a passing mockery she kept in her mind to knock him down a peg when his self-righteous nature grated on her back during her brief stint as Silk Spectre. She imagined him to be a clinical, almost robotic lover. That his vast knowledge would always prevail over practical wisdom in the bedroom, creating a detached experience that had nothing on Jon and his cosmic glory. If that Laurie could only see herself now, her mother was right- how things change indeed.

His tongue feels like it was made for her as it teases against her clit and Laurie doesn’t even try to muffle her vocalizations. Adrian learns what makes her twist against the sheets and fuck up against his face, and then uses that knowledge against her again and again until she comes, shaking and yanking on his immaculate golden hair. He only releases her with an obscene sucking noise once she pulls back from him, thighs trembling wildly.

Adrian looked up at her then, one of his cheeks darkening with a bruise and his mouth indecently wet and red. His big, stupid green eyes have gone dark as pitch, desperately begging her in ways his mouth refuses to. He looks up at her like a kicked puppy, which is all a ridiculous joke she only now sees the humor in for she knows that Adrian is quite possibly the most dangerous man alive.

“Take off your little pink nighties. Then get on the bed.” Laurie roughly tells him, still winded from orgasm.

Her jab at his masculinity falls flat as he stands to remove the lavender shorts, but Laurie isn’t surprised. Adrian always wore his pretty boy effeminacy with shameless grace. She finds that below the waist he is also remarkably hairless and notably uncircumcised, which only adds his ethereal exoticism she supposes.

He is effortlessly gorgeous, to put things bluntly. But there was never a question there; a leanly masculine body cut from marble with a soft mouth and liquid eyes. He isn’t exactly cocky as he pauses to let her stare, but he hardly looks surprised or flattered. _This shit probably happens every time he gets naked for someone._ But he’s very pretty, almost unnaturally so, and Laurie can’t resist pulling him back down to her. Adrian goes gladly.

She rolls him under herself and he lets her situate herself as she pleases. For a man who carried himself like a sex god, he was being remarkably demure and supplicant to her every whim. Adrian Veidt was always in impeccable control of himself, and Laurie knows tonight he has conceded it to her for reasons she cannot understand. But at the moment, she doesn’t have any reason to care.

Laurie presses herself against him, trapping his cock against their stomachs as she further assaults his abused neck, suckling more marks into it. Adrian still doesn’t ask her for anything, remaining frustratingly silent and pliant. Like he is but an observer in a phenomenon he finds distantly fascinating. It isn’t until she rubs her soaked cunt against him, letting him feel how wet he’s made her with his mouth and her own slick that she finally gets a mumble from him. A bitten off semblance of words that could be English just as easily as it could be any of the other countless languages he knows.

She smirks and moves her hands down to pinch at his nipples, under a suspicion they were particularly sensitive. He rewards her with a twitch against her thigh and harsh intake of breath.

“You think you deserve this? You think I should fuck you?” Laurie reaches her hands up to where the faint bruises were starting on his neck.

“ You can do whatever you’d like.” Veidt sounds calmly amused, but the way he was leaking precome all over their stomachs belies all his aloof indifference. It would seem that even the great Ozymandias wasn’t above autonomous psychical reactions in the face of sexual arousal. That was a spot exclusively reserved for Jon. He only became hard for penetration exactly when Laurie wanted him, just for the sole purpose of her pleasure. Jon was not so much a man in the bedroom but rather a sentient instrument to her desire.

But there was little doubting the humanity of the man under her now.

“You want me to fuck you Adrian? “ Laurie breaths between their lips, her voice a harsh whisper. “Do you?”

“Yea-es.” He murmurs, and it’s precariously close to _ja_ and that’s as much a victory as any.

“If it would be amenable to you.” He says more clearly when she pulls back and he’s looking at her with an uncharacteristic fondness that makes her want to shoot him all over again, like the eyes of an injured dove in the hands of its keeper. She should feed him to the cats, but she doesn’t.

She sinks down on his cock instead.

They’re both so wet there’s almost no resistance against the way he stretches her out, a pleasant ache that sends heat rushing through her. Distantly, she can hear Adrian’s muted sigh of abject relief as his head sinks back into the pillows.

She owes herself this, she decides. She deserves to take what she wants from him.

Laurie folds herself so she can reach his lips to sink her teeth into his swollen upper lip and Adrian rewards her with a faint groan. The pristineness of his face is tainted with a deep flush, his hair is in his eyes and though she can’t imagine she looks much better, Laurie is proud of herself.

“I don’t know if you’re usually the one doing the fucking,” Laurie remarks when she pulls back from his lips, setting her weight to press back on her heels and pulling him even deeper still. “Or if you just lie there and get fucked.”

“It entirely depends.” Adrian was breathing a little faster now, letting her set whatever pace she wanted.

“On what?”

“On whichever the situation calls for.”

Laurie eventually lets her hands rest against his throat, pressing her weight down on him with each roll of her hips. This was never meant to be a gentle thing, they are not gentle people and maybe that was always the difference between her and Dan.

Sensing the familiar overwhelming feeling of climax drawing nearer she grips him even tighter, almost as if she really means to kill him this time. But instead she comes, clenching around him like a vice as her world dissolves nothing more than heat and sensational bliss.

Coming back to herself, Laurie realizes Adrian is probably close . He could barely wait for her before he starts trusting up against her and making pitchy _ah_ noises. The kind a less secure man firmly entrenched in masculinity would be trying to hide. She’d briefly thought about edging him, but she doesn’t want to slow down even for a moment as she rides the afterglow.

It’s too late now anyways, Adrian’s perfect brows furrow in a look of concentrated rapture and it all ends with a messy rush of warmth from where they’re joined as he spends himself completely inside her.

Laurie is gasping for breath as she disentangles herself from him and even Adrian’s slightly winded- a sound she’s not quite sure she could ever recall hearing. He mutters something under his breath as he reclines gracefully back against the bedding, possibly ‘shit’ or maybe even ‘scheisse’ _,_ Laurie can’t quite make it out.

After a few moments of sated emptiness the weight of how stupid that just was, _all of it_ ,right up until the end begins to come down on her. Every single decision. She’s unfortunately sober enough to admit that as she stares up at the ceiling in a daze.

“I must say, I am a bit surprised that it’s you here instead of Dan.” It’s only when she hears Adrian’s voice coming from the other room does she realize he’s gone to the bathroom, likely to clean himself up.

“Would you rather it be Dan?” It’s all she can think to say.

“Doesn’t matter I suppose, it likely would’ve played out much the same whether it was you or Dan in your stead.” Adrian returns with a wet towel for her. “There’s a goldmine of repressed emotions between the two of you.” He smiles, like he’s laughing at a private joke. “ But it is very interesting that it’s you.”

She tried very hard not to think about what he means by that as she perfunctorily wipes herself off, as if she could erase a fraction of the shame.

“Well, speaking of, I should probably be going.” She throws the rag to the floor.

“You could stay the night Laurie, I’m not opposed to it.”

“Thought a guy with your reputation would understand a ‘wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am’ kinda deal.”

Adrian smiles at her reference, she knew him and Bowie had some sort of acquaintance, the exact nature of which she was entirely unclear of.

“Oh, I try to never dine and dash- not without paying the check.” With that makes himself comfortable in the bed, all loose limbed and very sated-cat looking. “Figuratively, of course.” He amends with a lazy grin.

Laurie snorts despite herself. “You don’t have anything to give me. Nothing that I would _ever_ accept from you.”

“Perhaps not.” He says as he folds his arms behind his head, but there’s something in his tone, some kind of disquiet. Like he knows something she doesn’t. But hell, this is Adrian- he always does.

“You know what,” Laurie takes just a moment to lay next to him, probably a mistake as she tries to ward off sleep. “I think you’re just as fucked up by what you did as Dan and I are. That’s why you let me use you, you think you deserved it.”

Adrian’s eyes are closed but he hums in response and it’s noncommittal and frustrating but suddenly she’s made of lead and her mind is a fuzzed tangle.

“You think that fixes a damn thing? You think that makes you more empathetic?” She tries but there’s no real bite to it, not as tired and emotionally drained as she is. It turns out trying to murder someone on an impulse and having furious sex instead was exhausting, _who knew_?

He’s baiting her into further exhaustion with a yawn, manipulative bastard that he is. But maybe it’s real, maybe he’s tired too. The bed is so soft, and _so_ comfortable, and the sheets feel like nothing she’s ever felt before.

She sleeps.

It is still dark out when Laurie wakes up, but the room is completely dark now too, save for the city lights filtering in from the expansive windows. She hadn’t been nearly drunk enough to forget where she was and she remembers. Laurie remembers every single bit of it, from the front door to the bedroom.

She could feel Adrian, warm and breathing deeply behind her. In the dim light she begins take in the room around her as she’d been a bit too preoccupied to actually notice it before. This LA penthouse seemed a far cry from the purple and gold embellishments from Veidt’s new York lifestyle and remarkably off brand for him. It was done in shades of white, and there were plants everywhere; very pacifist vegetarian-esqe and less history buff turned corporate giant.

She wondered if his penthouse haunted him with its grandiose shades of royal purple and gold everywhere he turned- she hoped it did. Maybe he’d run here to try and talk sense into himself and preoccupy his mind with the familiar innocent cocoon of a savior complex. That was the real drive behind these eco-friendly high-rises. It made sense that he was trying to cleanse himself of his sins as Ozymandias by cloaking himself in this new environment. Reimagining himself as some sort of god of life and rebirth, she supposed.

Maybe Adrian did feel some small measure of painful regret for his victims, but Laurie sure as hell wasn’t ever going to try and hazard a guess at what Adrian thought. Dan always doubted himself over his judge of character now, and Laurie couldn’t blame him. She felt there was no way of knowing what someone was truly capable of anymore. Not even herself.

Their conversation from last night echoed eerily in her mind.

_“Would you rather it be Dan?”_

_“Doesn’t matter I suppose, it likely would’ve played out much the same whether it was you or Dan in your stead.”_

Dan and Adrian having sex- she actually could see it happening just like he said. Adrian was dangerous like that, he could manipulate anyone into doing anything without ever letting them know they were being played.

 _God_ , she felt stupid. Humiliation, rage and the beginnings of a fierce hangover swirled in her mind.

Adrian must’ve sensed she was awake, or heard the minute changes in her breathing or some crazy shit like that. He buries his nose against her neck and inhales slightly. “Good morning.” He actually sounds sleepy, his voice deeper and rougher than the velvety silk he reserved for his waking hours.

 _Fuck._ She needs to get out of this, hearing him somehow makes it all the more real.

“So, I guess it wasn’t all a dream then.” Laurie mutters unhappily into the pillow.

“Afraid not.”

“ _Damn_ , because that was the only excuse I had for fucking a cold-blooded murderer.”

“Laurie, I am repentant in ways so vast they are immeasurable. I do want you to know that before you go back. ” She feels the hint of his lips against her neck.

Laurie turns to face him and finds Adrian looking at her in ways that make the self-made façade melt away. She sees the hickies and bruises she’d left, his hair was mussed from sleep but _his eyes_. His eyes betrayed it all and for the first time since Karnak, she is inclined to believe him. She desperately wants to believe in his genuine benevolence. To forget that every moment is a careful manipulation, that he’s always 10 steps ahead of humanity. How he looks at her now makes her believe that sometimes he occasionally walks among the rest.

It would be so easy to believe him and she wants to, badly.

Her vision blurred before she even knew she was crying. The dam of emotion welling up inside her had finally spilled over, the rush of everything over the past year flooded her, particularly the weight of what she’d just done. The rage that had swelled within her had crystalized into a hollow void, with a desperate sorrow at the heart of it. It’d always been there, in various states of repression throughout her life.

“Oh my god, oh god.” She wasn’t sobbing outright but the tears flowed freely. “I thought.. I mean- after all the years we’d known you _-_ Adrian _why_ ,” She hasn’t cried like this in years _,_ but nothing like falling into bed with the man you tried to murder hours ago who was also decidedly not your fiancé to make you realize you weren’t the person you thought you were either.

Beating him up hadn’t somehow magically filled the hollow inside her, murdering him probably wouldn’t help, and fucking him- well now she was crying into his 2000 count sheets and pristinely waxed chest. The burden of truth she held was just too great, facing the reality that clinging to Dan just wasn’t enough. 

“I still can’t even- _fuck_. How could you? _Why?_ ” Laurie implores and she honestly wants to know how it all could’ve gone so wrong. It all still seems so impossible.

“Yes,” Adrian whispers into her hair, abnormally comforting in patronizing ways she should be bothered by, ways she shouldn’t be allowing. “Yes. I know.”

Laurie doesn’t really know what he knows and what he doesn’t, but none if it even seems to matter any more. Not when she feels his hands on her cheeks, and meets his melty green eyes staring down at her.

There were no words between them, nothing left to say as Adrian kissed her, and she let him. She let him overwhelm all her senses, taking what he offered her- even if she knew she should throw it back in his face. There was barely room to breathe between them as their lips melded together, tender in a way it shouldn’t be. As if they were just 2 broken people taking what they needed, but Laurie knew she shouldn’t need it. Maybe now she felt Adrian’s pain.

Or maybe she was just using him as a way of understanding Jon’s.

Within minutes he was inside her again, plunging down in deep strokes that made light dance inside her. She felt his sweat against her skin and it was surreal, them fucking and kissing like a couple of virginal newlyweds, all missionary and under the covers. Like this he could _almost_ be a normal man, not this broken ace of a fallen entity with the sex appeal of a glam rock star. This used to be Jon’s favorite position, and somehow, someway, Adrian probably knows that.

It was all still so overwhelming, and she was already thoroughly worked up, hypersensitized and overwrought as she was. It takes no time at all for him to get her there, but it’s less an explosive thing this time and more of a slow melting sensation as she comes.

“Oh god,” she whimpers when he leaves her lips in little nibbles down to suck on her neck. _Oh, she is so fucked._

This went against everything it should’ve been, and she can’t take the saccharine softness, she wants to rip it apart.

Laurie parts his perfect cupid’s bow lips with 2 fingers and he sucks on them readily, teasing them with his tongue in a way that reminds her of it against her clit. She can’t help but clench around him, his tongue so skilled she could almost forget everything else entirely.

Gradually, she reaches her slicked fingers down between his smooth cheeks to press at him, just barely breaching him and feeling how tight and warm he was inside.

“There- there yes, darling. _Yes_.” Adrian murmurs against her neck, pulling back to fuck himself on her fingers and forward to drive himself into her once again. With each thrust she pushed deeper inside until she found the spot she was looking for, the one that spurs his movements into a rough fevered pace.

“Ah- _fuck_!” Adrian swears as she feels him clench tightly around her digits, his sudden orgasm taking them both by surprise.

Laurie doesn’t even realize she’s clinging to him until their sweat began to cool just enough that it becomes uncomfortable and sticky. She immediately shoves herself away and tries to hastily detangle herself from the sheets.

“Holy _shit_ ,” She can’t help shaking her head as reality starts setting in. “I must be completely out of my mind.”

“Anytime you feel the need to reach out Laurie, you are welcome to. You’re clearly more than adept at finding me.”

“No, no, no.” Her head pounds as she searches desperately for her clothes. “Just…shut up.”

“What the _fuck_ am I gonna tell Dan?” Laurie all but yells at Adrian while yanking her shirt back over her head. She’d meant it entirely rhetorically, Adrian couldn’t possibly offer her any advice she’d actually want.

“Mmm,” Adrian hums as he rolls over onto his stomach, making no attempts whatsoever to help her locate her scattered garments and looking every bit the spoiled puppet-master with the world in the palm of his hands now. “Darling Laurie, that’s entirely up to you.”

The endearment isn’t lost on her, almost like he’s taunting her.

“But should I see him here next, I guess I’ll know why. Dan does have fiercely protective streak when it comes to you. ”

 _What has she done._ She finishes dressing and turns back to face him on the bed. Somewhere in the back of her mind Laurie knows this is all somehow of Adrian’s orchestrations, that he may not have planned for this per say, but undoubtably manipulated the situation to play in his favor, to his own ends- whatever they might be. He could’ve easily stopped her or taken control of the situation at any time, but he chose not to. At best, maybe he was broken by his own actions and he needed something from her too.

“You’re still a total asshole.” Is all she can muster before she leaves. It doesn’t carry the venom she was hoping for but seemed ironically fitting since that was more or less the last thing she’d actually said to him at Karnak.

Back at street level she gives the building one last glance before turning towards the emptiness that came with dawn on the thoroughfare. She’d think of some excuse to tell her mother regarding her whereabouts last night, providing Sally had gotten back early enough to even notice she was missing in the first place. Life would go on, somehow, someway, like it always did.

Laurie’s own words echo in her head now. _People’s lives take them strange places, they do strange things._

And a fleeting thought passes through her, so tiny and blurred it could barely be perceptible; a vague future notion that maybe this will be how she explains it all to her daughter someday.


End file.
